


Hell Is Yourself

by alittleshitwithfeels



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Les Misérables - All Media Types, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel - Michael Scott
Genre: Constructed Reality, Gen, Heavy Angst, Illusions, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Post-Series, Psychological Torture, Suicide Attempt, Torture, bc i couldnt pick one ship, but a giant mac poly ship is implied, no official ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittleshitwithfeels/pseuds/alittleshitwithfeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dark Elders capture and punish Machiavelli for going against them with their usual cruelty.  They force Machiavelli's illusions to feed off his darkest fears and then leave him in a cell with only his thoughts and the twisted visions of his loved ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell Is Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Mac Angst-Fest, enjoy your stay!
> 
> Oh god, someone take this poor man away from me.

Machiavelli drew his paper-thin sheet tight around himself and kept his eyes clamped shut against the visions in his cell.  He could still hear taunts, shattering plates, and distant echoes of questions in gruff Italian.  The questions made his shoulders and back ache in memory.

 

He’d never put much stock in religion as more than a means of manipulation.

 

Someone yanked off the meek covering and threw him to the floor.  The rough concrete skinned his face and hands.

 

Even prone on the floor for the fifth time today, the idea of a greater something offered little comfort.

 

He was kicked onto his back and he cracked open his eyes.  Javert loomed over him, expression hard and distant.

 

One thing religion got right was the concept of Hell.

 

And Hell was staring into the stone eyes of a man you were so intimate with that you knew his secret first name.

Hell was hearing plates crash in the background and being unable to not hear your late-wife call you a cold, unfeeling monster.

Hell was seeing your children cower in fear of you even though you’re the one being beaten by a friend of four hundred years.

Hell was seeing a new friend being impaled over and over again.

Hell was the killer sometimes having your face.

Hell was seeing a dead friend who abuses you far more viciously now than he had in life.

Hell was being happy even as you sobbed because everything hurts but at least he’s alive here.

Hell was having a fallen angel push shards of glass and ceramic into your hands.

Hell was a fallen angel pantomiming slicing his wrists.

Hell was wanting to listen.

 

Hell wasn’t going through with it.

Hell wasn’t your vision blurring.

Hell wasn’t falling forwards and smashing your skull on concrete.

 

Hell was waking up afterwards.  

 

Machiavelli peeled his eyes open; a distorted reflection of himself in blood stared back at him.  He pushed himself up with bony arms and sat back, ignoring the blood still pooled around him.  His arms had been sloppily bandaged with what looked like his meager bedsheet.  He felt his forehead and found it similarly wrapped.

 

That was the Dark Elders.  
Death is too good for you.

 

A lump lodged itself in Niccolò’s throat and he started shaking.  Wasn’t he broken enough now?  Or was this punishment for being a coward and refusing to face the truth?  He didn’t have enough water in his body for tears, but he rocked and wailed.  He ripped off his sheet bandages and clawed the half-formed scabs on his arms.  “Let me die!”  He shrieked, chunks of flesh raining from his arm.  “Let me die, let me die, let me die!”  He kept scratching until he couldn’t move his arms anymore and then laid back down on the floor.  Blood continued oozing from his wounds and comforting darkness closed in from the edges of his vision.  “I’m a coward,” he slurred.  “Please just let me die.”

 

He woke up.

 

This time Machiavelli woke up strapped down to his measly mattress.  He tested the bonds just on principle and found they were as solid as he expected.  He turned his head to check his arms.  Both were properly bandaged with actual gauze; the Dark Elders must have really wanted him alive for more torture.  The room was deafening in its silence and Niccolò hated that the silence set his teeth on edge.  When did screaming and taunts and shattering plates become normal background noise?  

 

It was also lonely without his tormentors and he resented himself for that feeling.

 

“Just give me Dee.”  He murmured despite himself.  Dee was dead because of him.  If he had just… or did….

 

Dee didn’t appear and Machiavelli coaxed himself into a dreamless sleep.

 

A few hours later, he woke up to unbound limbs and a faint scent of bread.  His stomach churned at the thought of food, so he turned over with a shudder that didn’t end even as he slept.  He woke again with a pounding headache.  His limbs felt like they were made of lead and the last thing he wanted to do was move, but even dehydrated his bladder was insistent.  He forced himself off the mattress and stumbled toward the toilet the Dark Elders were generous enough to give him.  He relieved himself, vaguely concerned by the fact he had to brace himself on the toilet tank and the fact his urine was a dark yellow.  He couldn’t think about it too hard without his headache intensifying, so he just shambled back to his bed and flopped down like a ragdoll.

 

Where was everybody?

 

He found himself missing them.  He missed their faces, even as twisted and warped as they often were.  He missed their voices despite the venom that always came from them.

 

He idly picked at the gauze, wincing at the tenderness of his arm.

“Someone tell me how pathetic I am.”  Machiavelli glanced back at the empty room.  Bloodstains on the floor and walls were the only indication that anything lived there.  “Tell me I’m a monster.  Beat me.   _Something_.”  He begged, throat tightening.  “Don’t leave me alone.”  Was he so undesirable that even torturing visions wouldn’t talk to him?  Was he so pathetic that he would take any interaction, positive or negative?

A sharp toothed, pearly white smile peeled apart the air in front of him.  Soon it was joined by a proper face and body.  “This is a bit narcissistic, isn’t it?”  The newcomer drawled in archaic Italian.  “You want someone to talk to and then create yourself.”  He dusted off his impeccable and perfectly tailored suit, looking over Machiavelli with disgust.  “Admittedly, I’m far better looking than you are.”  Machiavelli raked his gaze over the doppelganger and let his shame cover his face.  The doppelganger had smooth skin radiating the energy of youth.  The doppelganger had trimmed jet black hair that rested close to his skull.  Machiavelli refused to meet his eyes.

The doppelganger forced Machiavelli onto his back before straddling him.  “What happened to you?  Oh that’s right, you were always pathetic.  You spoke and wrote of princes and lions, but you could never be one of those.”  He grabbed Machiavelli’s face with manicured hands and forced him to meet his cold, green, reptilian eyes.  “History was wrong about you.  You’re no terrifying devil; you’re just a pitiful man who tried crawling back the Medici.  You’re a wretched man who falls for any ploy that makes you feel important and needed.”  Machiavelli struggled to turn away and, when that failed, he closed his eyes.

 

“You aren’t even going to try and defend yourself?”  The doppelganger slid his hands around Machiavelli’s neck.  “How typical, you spineless, contemptible, feeble sack of shit.”  His hands tightened and Machiavelli braced for death, how ever temporary it was.

Water splashed on his knees and he opened his eyes, confused.  His eyes met Javert’s pleading gaze through a pool of water.  Machiavelli had his hands wrapped around the inspector’s throat, holding him underwater.  The water loosened the bandages on his arms and Javert’s thrashing knocked them loose.  Machiavelli found he couldn’t pull his arms out of the water and he couldn’t look away from the struggling Javert.  He watched Javert slow his movements.  He watched Javert go limp in his iron grip.  Only then was he able to pull his arms free and he yanked them out before scrambling far from the pool.  Even with his haste, he caught a glimpse of his reflection.  The only thing he registered was sharp, glowing snake eyes.

His chest heaved and he moved to scrub his face with his hands, but he found his arms were swarming with spiders.  He watched, paralyzed with fear, as they tore into his skin with fangs dripping with venom.  They started burying themselves in his flesh and he watched lumps move under his skin.  Screaming, he started ripping into his own skin with ragged fingernails.  “Get out!  Getoutgetoutgetout!”  

 

“Velli!  Machiavelli stop!”

 

Machiavelli shot into consciousness and found himself staring into amber snake eyes.  He flinched and fumbled backwards in search of a corner or just some distance.  Blood ran down his arms and his legs shook with fatigue.  Crowley’s eyes softened with pity and he Miracled Niccolò’s wounds closed.  Nausea swept over him in consequence of the number of good miracles he performed today.  Machiavelli looked at his wrists, the room, and Crowley with trepidation.  The door of his cell was wide open.  “Am I saved?”  He croaked in a small voice.  He noticed a hunk of moldy bread by his mattress.  “Please don’t lie to me.  If you’re going to hurt me, just hurt me.”

 

Crowley frowned.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  We came to get you out of this shit-hole.”

 

“We?”

 

At that moment Billy, Dagon, and Javert entered the room.  Niccolò found himself expecting Dee to join them and bit back tears as he realized Dee never would.  Dagon stepped forward with an explanation.  His voice instantly soothed Machiavelli’s nerves; Hell’s Dagon never sounded like this.

 

“Sir, Javert and Madame Perenelle combined their efforts to break the spell the Dark Elders placed upon you.  Perenelle went with her husband and their friends to clear out the rest of the compound.  The Dark Elders left long before we got here.”  Machiavelli thought back to the moldy chunk of bread.  How long had he been out?  Who left food?  He pushed himself into a standing position.  Billy and Javert moved forward to support him.

 

“How did you find me?”

 

The party glanced at one another, but Machiavelli was too tired to bother trying to read their eyes.  “Aten called.”  Javert said and everyone else gaped at him.

 

Machiavelli tensed and started hobbling toward the door.  “We have to get out then!  This is obviously a trap!”

 

Instead of arguing the point, Javert scooped the skeletal Machiavelli into his arms and the whole party left the building at a brisk pace.  They walked up to Dagon’s car and Dagon promptly opened the back door for Machiavelli, but Machiavelli still saw his reflection in the dark glass.  His face was gaunt and wrinkles showed his age.  His hair was shaggy and hung in long greasy, dirty clumps.  His clothes hung off of his thin frame.  He thought of his younger doppelganger.  Was he even worth saving?  Javert set him gently in the car before climbing in himself.  Everyone else followed suit.

As they drove away, Niccolò wondered why the building hadn’t gone up in flames yet.  It had been a trap, right?

 

Was he actually free?

 


End file.
